Climate change

ACT Alliance believes that climate change is one of our greatest existential challenges and is committed in particular to addressing its impacts on the world's poorest people, who have contributed the least to the negative effects of climate change but suffer its consequences the most.

ACT calls on every country to be fully accountable, and for climate policies to enhance sustainable development.

The alliance believes climate change should be tackled on the basis of shared but different levels of responsibility: countries that have an historic responsibility for climate change must also be the ones making the biggest efforts to combat it.

ACT is working on many fronts around the world

Raising awareness of the scientific, moral and legal issues at stake.

Challenging political leaders to minimise the negative impact of climate change on the world's poorest people so that they can lead lives that are more secure and less vulnerable to its devastating effects.

Developing innovative solutions – ranging from the financial to the technical – to address the havoc wreaked by decades of carbon over-consumption and political negligence.

Helping communities in practical ways, through humanitarian and development programmes all over the world, to adapt to climate change – by developing preventative measures such as dams and hurricane-proof housing, and ensuring people have the resilience to recover more quickly when climate-related disasters strike.

Adaptation

As an alliance of over 33,000 people working together to achieve justice for the world's poorest communities who are often harmed the most by climate change our priority is to help people make practical improvements to their living conditions right now. We want to ensure people are as well equipped as they can be to withstand the calamitous effects of climate change.

We focus on adaptation – developing new ways of doing things to accommodate changing climatic conditions, new farming techniques, for instance, and new ways of building houses.

We also aim to reduce the risks posed by disasters linked to our changing climate, such as growing mangrove forests along rivers to slow down flood waters and protect dwellings built on flood plains. We try to help people adapt their livelihoods so that they are less economically vulnerable when a disaster strikes. We support communities' abilities to recover after they are hit by floods, droughts, famines and other disasters triggered by climate change. And we seek to influence policies to deal with subsequent loss and damage.

Financial compensation

Financial compensation is a key area in any discussion about climate change. Countries with historic responsibility also have responsibility to mobilise compensation to combat the negative effects of climate change. Compensation should be additional (to other forms of funding for climate change programmes), predictable and adequate. The priority should be to direct it to developing countries, especially those with fewer resources and capabilities to face the effects of climate change.

Climate finance will have to come from public budgets and the private sector using innovative financial models. The goal of mobilising US $100 billion in 2020 is likely to fall short of what is needed. It must be acknowledged that the need for funding for adaptation programmes will increase rapidly if ambitious mitigation actions are not taken.

Low carbon development

A global shift towards a new development paradigm that is economically just and environmentally friendly is a pre-condition to keep global warming well below 2 degrees. A global move to low carbon development is the only remaining option for industrialised countries, emerging economies and developing nations. However, low carbon development pathways must respect a development threshold and the equal right of all people to use the environment sustainably.

Latest news about
Climate change

22 January 2014 - ACT Alliance and APRODEV joint statement. The European Commission’s 2030 objectives for climate change and energy policies unveiled today are woefully inadequate if the world is to avoid runaway climate change, two faith-based development and emergency organisations warn.

As this year’s Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction conference comes to an end, ACT Alliance and its members resolve to work even harder to build the resilience of communities towards disasters and the impacts of climate change.

The ACT Alliance Climate Change Award for 2013 was given May 21st to RDRS Bangladesh for best practice in its project, alleviating poverty through disaster risk reduction, which has been implemented in North West part of Bangladesh.

It is time to rethink development, to open our eyes to the adverse effects of our high-consumption lifestyles and values. We have to transform our economy. We have to switch to a low-carbon and resource-efficient development model that closes the gap between rich and poor.

A US-hosted meeting to discuss climate finance only included wealthy western governments – while no single developing country was invited to participate in the talks that were ostensibly meant to support them.

Tired of being victims to annual flood waters that inundate their houses, residents of several villages along the shore of the largest lake in the Philippines are organising to either stop the flooding or find viable alternatives for their families.

ACT has joined around 40 NGOs and alliances to sign an open letter to ministers as they arrive in Doha calling for immediate emissions cuts, adaptation assistance for developing countries, and an international mechanism to compensate for loss and damage.